IGN - My Evening with Nintendo TVii

IGN - Thursday nights are a common TV time for me. I’ll usually catch the NBC comedy lineup, bounce over to CBS for The Big Bang Theory, and wrap things up with Brian Williams and a segment or two of the Rock Center newsmagazine. Tonight, I followed my usual routine – but with the Wii U GamePad in my hands.
(Nintendo TVii, Wii U)

I think Nintendo TVii is a great example of how getting to market first isn't always best. The honest truth is that there is only so much you can do without a TV tuner built right into the console. Even if the UI hiccups are fixed and the software becomes more intuitive, the end result is still going to be the same: once you finish navigating and (hopefully easily) find something to watch, the gamepad is going to send simple IR transmissions (like a channel number) to a third party set-top box. Even with DVR compatibility, the communication is going to be a somewhat arduous process. For example, clicking an older recording may take you first the the dvr menu, then require you to select which recording you are seeking and start it yourself. Some other type of communication where more complex commands can be sent to instantaneously start a recording would probably require specific software built into a DVR/Tuner, and thus would probably necessitate one being built into a console (or made available to cable providers' boxes, which will never happen). My logic could be faulty here, I'm not exactly an expert.

TVii presents an advantage over the way we currently browse TV in terms of seeing when new episodes of our favorite shows will be on, but this adv. is rendered irrelevant currently because the user cannot set recordings for those shows.

That said, I truly appreciate the option to view which tv shows and movies are "live." This option makes it easy when you're deciding where to tune "in-the-moment." It's not without its flaws though. Without the option to input the channels that you don't get in your package, the live category will always display listings for things you cannot view (this was my experience, at least). And discovering you cannot view them is not as simple as selecting the program, for when you do, you must then click again to view options and again to confirm your TV is on the correct input, and then finally it will tell you to which channel it would like you to go.

Of course, all of this is only relevant when we're talking about TV from the set-top box. If Nintendo can improve load times when it directs users to Hulu and Netflix AND bring other apps like HBO Go and ABC, then we'll have something worth using.

I doubt we'll see a truly streamlined and seamless experience with integrating television and a smart device as a remote until Apple's new TV. In the meantime, TVii is a small step in the right direction, with features like TVtag demonstrating what all this integration could really bring to the table.